Thought for late Friday afternoon, prompted by the need for tax competition: “You cannot run a socialist experiment when there’s an escape hatch”.
Tom Burroughes
tom.burroughes@reuters.com
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January 11th, 2002 | Comments are closed
 [Editor: We thought this reader’s letter from Lagwolf was worth published ‘as is’ and without comment] When not holding off the spawn of the “Goat with a Thousand Young” this week (Natwest Bank), I have been contemplating a few things. Most obvious during the post-euphoric cigarette smoke and chat centreing around the Euro, is that of libertarianism and the EU. Most specifically is it possible for someone who calls themselves a libertarian to be also pro-European Union. For the sake of giving the thoughts borders, let us assume that the EU is an organisation that wishes to end up as single European state called “Europe” and that Prodi was right in his recent musings on the subject. Let us ignore the domestic apologists for the EU who believe that is not heading that way and is merely a collection of like-minded states wishing to co-operate. The seems to be a particularly British disease, I have yet to meet, in all my dealings with continentals, one who does not believe the EU is heading that way. It does not matter whether they are pro or anti or none of the above. I think it is impossible for someone to be pro-EU and be a libertarian if they in fact know anything about the EU at all. The entire apparatus is anti-freedom and highly statist. Do anyone who reads this honestly believe that they EU will ever keep its meddling hands out of any aspect of its citizens lives? What is most amusing of course is there attitude towards the transfer of labour. On one hand they promise all their citizens to move about and work where he or she wishes to do so, but on the other hand they are striving to make it unattractive to do so. What would be the point, baring love or taste, of someone moving to a fellow EU country if all aspects of financial and professional life are the same. The EU is its lowest common denominator approach wants to make it so no part of the EU is any more attractive to a worker than other part. This will of course please the bureaucrats because they absolutely hate people who do not stay in one place and preferably stay in the same job. Let’s face it, the bureaucrats want to know where you are and what you are doing at all times. Further the musing on Euro-slavia (there was an alright published under that name a few years back ). You really do not have to look at Yugoslavia to see that there is a great possibility the EU will eventually fall into chaos and civil war. It may last 50 years or even 100 but its internal rifts are just too large to overcome. I have been pondering this for many a year and have written a trilogy of Eurosceptic cyberpunk novels that remain unpublished. I lost any hope of getting them published once I realised all the major players in the publishing game in the UK are owned one way or other by the Germans. At this point it is possible that a publisher of said books could be prosecuted for distributing an anti-EU publication. However, thanks to the glory of this wonderful thing called the internet, the books are available in edited manuscript form from my website (lupusandco.com)*1 in a few days once I re-launch it. Of course it is quite possible that the recent laws limiting criticism of the EU will ultimately be its undoing. When enough people start getting banged up in gaol for merely criticising one aspect of the EU people, even in the UK might sit up and take notice. It would be a wonder to behold to see Amnesty launching a campaign to save some fisherman or farmers being held in some Belgium jail for burning the EU flag. Is the Euro-wide arrest warrant the first nail in the EU coffin? Lagwolf [Editor’s note: *1 = We will report when this site is up and running] January 11th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Karl Popper‘s epistemology is about how to solve problems and find better theories, and as such observations do not have the grossly overrated importance given to them by inductivism. The whole notion of probability in this context is irrelevant, since a theory is either true or false and no number of confirming instances allow us to distinguish between them. On Thursday, Will Wilkinson wrote:
Damn straight he is. He does all that, eats broken glass for breakfast and, most excitingly of all – he’s a critical rationalist!
Not in the sense you mean, i.e.- the sense that it is definitely or probably correct. We tentatively accept that a theory is better than its rival on the basis of things such as whether they provide good explanations and whether the other theories have been refuted by observations.
So it’s totally impossible that you are hallucinating the mug? Also, why are you so obsessed about whether there is a mug on your desk or not? It’s not a very interesting question. I would sooner debate about something substantial like a meaty scientific or philosophical problem, which brings us back to the main point. Leaving quibbles like that aside, there are actually two quite different issues here. One is whether one can derive theories from observations, the other is if not what role do observations play? It is impossible to derive theories for observations. To take but one counterexample, up until the late 19th century every observation was compatible with Newton’s theory of gravity. All these observations are also compatible with Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Two quite different theories were compatible with the same set of observations, therefore one cannot derive theories from observations. Next we have to ask why you made those particular observations, rather than observations of, say, the exact weight of all the dust under your bed. Before the theories come along that differ in their predictions about the motion of the planets or whatever, there is no particular reason to watch their motion so theories can hardly be derived from observations. The problem is much worse than this though. Even if one could confirm, say, an equation of motion on the basis of observations, one could not derive the explanation provided by the theory from observations. For example, one could explain the motion of the planets by saying that they are pushed round the Sun by invisible pixies that just happen to obey Einstein’s equations. This explanation is rubbish on a truly epic scale compared to the explanation in terms of curved spacetime, but as the observations do not allow us to distinguish between them, the pixie theory of planetary motion must be criticised on other grounds. The role of observations is to distinguish between rival theories. Each prediction of a theory is either true or false, and each theory is either true or false, no number of confirming instances can change that, and hence they cannot prove it to be true, but if we see a refuting instance, then the theory is false.
Newton’s theory was false, so as it turns out the probability was indeed the same :-). However, all this talk of probability ignores the real issue of why, before it was refuted, it was reasonable to hold Newton’s theory, but not the theory that cats give birth to elephants, or why it is reasonable to prefer General Relativity or whatever to such a theory now. It is a good idea to prefer General Relativity to its rival because its rivals are poorer at solving problems. It is reasonable to prefer the theory that elephants give birth to elephants rather than cats because the former solves problems and the latter does not, indeed it raises new ones. To be a bit more explicit, the theory of evolution, which is better than its rivals (although I don’t think there are any really serious rivals at the moment), gives us reason to think that elephants give birth to more elephants as a way of spreading elephant genes. The theory that cats give birth to elephants not only fails to solve any problems, it ruins theories that do solve problems. It makes absolutely no sense from an evolutionary perspective why would cat genes want to propagate elephants genes? Where did the cat get the elephant genes in the first place? Furthermore, no matter how you try to solve these problems, you just raise more and worse problems, so we can reject the theory that cats give birth to elephants out of hand. To summarize, good theories solve problems better than their rivals, but raise problems themselves, which will be solved by their successors and so we don’t consider that observations and so on confirm a theory. Alan Forrester January 11th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Silvio Berlusconi has been given a rough ride for his outspoken views, such as the cultural and political superiority of the West vis a vis the Islamic world and also on his remarks on matters pertaining to the EU. Okay, not quite nuanced enough for some tastes but hey, it is a massive improvement on the usual mealy-mouthed outpourings of the European political classes, not to mention our own Sainted Tony Blair. An excellent article by Michael Gonzalez appears in Thursday’s print edition of the Wall Street Journal Europe (page 7), though I cannot find it on the online WSJ.com. Whatever one thinks of Berlusconi, he has already endeared himself to this humble scribe for ruffling the feathers of the Euro-weenies and generally upsetting their digestions. Rock on, Silvio! Tom Burroughes January 11th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Just when we were about to celebrate finally pulling the plug on Noam Chomsky the world seems to conspire to throw him a lifeline. I am talking about the apparent collapse of the US energy corporation Enron who, like just about every other major US corporation I should imagine, sought political influence by contributing to the Republican Party election campaign. Nothing new about this of course and it would come as a considerable surprise if the Enron suits didn’t shovel a fistful of dollars at a few Democrats just to hedge their bets But you can already hear the rush of adrenalin in leftist veins at the prospect of tarring George Bush with the brush of financial scandal. The Brussels Broadcasting Corporation can barely conceal its glee as they report that Bush is in big trouble! Real big trouble! He’s deeply implicated. He’s trying to distance himself but the questions won’t go away. This is worse than Whitewater. Much worse! Will Bush survive??!! But that’s nothing. The best is yet to come as the demented Chomskyites and disgruntled Democrats (or do I repeat myself?) start building their coalition for a major offensive. Expect lots of this kind of thing all over cyberspace:
Yawn January 11th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Of all the memes in all the countries in all the world, Blairism is the one that is catching on as this article in the Spectator reminds us. They are also quite right to foresee a similar prohibition in Britain should even one little poppet get his or her fingers barbecued next Guy Fawkes Night (and we know, we just know that at least one of them will) The Safety Nazis have been crusading to ban fireworks for years and, in a country whose prime (perhaps only) preoccupation is safety, it is only a matter of time before they succeed. So, in future, we’re all going to have to spend Guy Fawkes Night gathering around the central heating and letting off some party poppers (until they ban those as well) Pessimistic? Moi? January 11th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Euroslavia? THE FEARFUL BALKAN INTERMEZZO By Tomislav Sunic The former Balkan drama is a textbook example of how petty nationalism, once on the loose, can lead to surreal crimes. The past wars amidst similar European peoples, in what was once known as Yugoslavia, have sealed national romance The indictments of Balkan ethnic cleansers by the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague are in full swing and their legal proviso is designed to further strengthen the tenants of the supranational New World Order, including its itinerant semi-kangaroo courts. The results of the past wars in the Balkans seem to have strengthened and already cemented the mandatory multicultural, i.e. The consequences of the Balkan disarray should not be mistaken for its causes. The safest way to explain away the former Yugoslav conflicts is by putting most of the blame on the former Serb president Slobodan Milosevic, some of the blame The Yugoslav multiethnic experiment demonstrated twice in this century that it could not last. In 1941, the first Yugoslavia broke up, with Croats and Slovenes flocking to their ancestral central-European neighbor Germany. Serbs continued to toy partly with the Allies and partly with the Axis. In 1991, Croats and Slovenes again bailed out of the predominantly Serb-oriented communist Yugoslavia. The lesson that follows is that if the forced unity fails twice, there is no reason to believe in the viability of a third reunion. Divorce sounds preferable to a bad marriage. Yet, the demise of the Yugoslav experiment in 1991 could never be fully shrugged away by the European Union and the apostles of the New World Order. The multiethnic ex-Yugoslavia had for decades squared away with liberal and communist pseudo-academic role models of multiculturalism. In addition, Yugoslavia was a blueprint for the budding and nebulous Soviet-inspired European Union. It had provided intellectual fodder for the disabused leftist intelligentsia all over Europe, which is today converting to the more successful Ex-Yugoslavia went up in sky-high flames in 1991 and could neither be forgiven nor forgotten by the advocates of New World Order. Hence now, a new need has arisen, espoused by left-leaning EU officials and their New York plutocratic acolytes to create a new multi-ethnic laboratory in the state of Bosnia-Hercegovina and in the NATO protectorate of the Kosovo. In fact, the present artificial statelets of Bosnia-Hercegovina and the Kosovo are basically designed and militarily upheld in an effort to demonstrate another third multicultural experiment –which should be used again some day as still more educational homework for ‹peaceful ethnic groups living side by side and happily ever after.” Recent developments though, in the Albanian populated Kosovo, the fractured Macedonia, as well as the ongoing turmoil in the Croatian parts of Bosnia-Hercegovina, all point to the impossibility of such dangerous global endeavors. Most of the blame must be attributed to the Versailles treaty architects of 1919. Little did they understand the ethnic intricacies of the region, let alone foresee the consequences of their New World Order projects. What those world-improvers wanted was the creation of an artificial multiethnic entity that could contain Germany’s access to the South and the East. The unhappy subjects of the Although the Western media has handpicked the Serb Slobodan Milosevic as the household demon, his Croat nationalist counterparts do not fare better. A number of high-ranking Croat military officers were hailed as heroes not too long ago, but are now scheduled for The Hague War Crimes Tribunal hearings. The new leftist-liberal governments in Croatia and Serbia pay loud lip service to Brussels bureaucrats, yet appear unable to grasp the trap of the New World Order To counter mass psychosis, which has been a hallmark of the Balkans throughout centuries, all eyes are riveted on the magic wand of the European Union. The official opinion among the new ruling classes in Serbia, Macedonia, Croatia, or Bosnia is that the EU is the rich men’s club that will henceforth dispense enormous wealth to everybody. On top of all this, EU officials have enough of their local nodmen in the Balkans willing to sign any paper in order to implement some feel-good semblance of paper stability. Although the Versailles-sponsored multiethnic Yugoslavia failed, ironically, the Brussels-based Euroslavia, appears now to be the far more dangerous game in town. The tired Balkan masses, in what used to be once communist multicultural Yugoslavia, think that the road to Brussels is the quick way to heavenly bliss. Yet the vaunted European Union may soon face the storms of its own violent I don’t know who Mr.Sunic is. He is described as an ‘author who writes from Europe’ which is not very helpful. I also possess no more than a sketchy knowledge of the recent tragic history of the Balkans and, judging from his name alone, I assume that Mr.Sunic is vastly better equipped than I to speak on these matters. (I am also aware that we have a redoubtable Balkan Blogger in the shape of Natalija Radic) I will say, however, that from the bottom of this particular fishtank, the dark forebodings in the above article do have the ring of prescience about them January 11th, 2002 | Comments are closed
President Bush announced today that they have stopped a terrorist organization that has taken millions and millions away from the American people. Yes! The IRS is finished! – Jay Leno January 11th, 2002 | Comments are closed
It is simple really… less, not more, public sending helps the economy. What is so hard to grasp about that? When the government taxes, it allocates resources in a way that would not have otherwise have occurred (and if it would have occurred like that, then why is that aspect of what government does being done by government at all?). If the government had not taken those resources and allocated them, the capital would not have just sat under a mattress… it would have gone elsewhere: that is what capital does. So when the government proudly points to some wonderful things it has built and the alleged economic benefits they will bring, what you do not see is what that self same capital would have done if the state had not appropriated it from its previous owners… what they would have done, what they would have built. So when Gerard Baker at the Financial Times says Bush may have harmed the US economy with his tax cuts, rather than saying he may have harmed the economy by not reducing spending, he is in effect saying that it is only deficits, rather than government spending itself, that hurts economies. By saying High-Tax-Tom Daschle has better economic policies, that must mean that government spending is actually better for an economy than private spending. How does that work? That must be why the many nations whose governments appropriate more of their national resources for spending are wealthier than the United States, you know, nations like…er…um…ah… January 11th, 2002 | Comments are closed
As the focus of events is less and less on Afghanistan, the focus of the blogger punditerati is likewise fragmenting in many directions… one of the interesting things about the many blogs over the last few months has been that many bloggers have been picking up the same news stories and it has been fascinating to see differing interpretations. With the advantage of many probing eyes, obscure on-line reports get picked up from more unusual regional newspapers or some out-of-the-way repository of cypherpunk web documents, and suddenly a new surge of interacting interpretations hits the blogs. I suspect this is what Glenn Reynolds meant when he once described himself as being part of a ‘hive mind’. However as the focus of events becomes more fragmented and regionalized post-Taliban, the stories that get picked up and blogged becomes more regionalized as well. I am fascinated by Glenn Reynolds’ often innovative takes on geopolitics and other issues on Instapundit but when I get to his views on a US plagiarism scandal involving folks I have never heard of, I tend to wander off elsewhere after the third article on the subject, checking other blogs for war news or perhaps something more generally pan-Anglospherical in appeal. Yet I suspect this is a natural process, a cycle rather than movement towards some less interacting endpoint… the ‘hive mind’ will fragment into locally focused clusters only to surge back together periodically as a global story catches the imagination. At the moment the Canadian bloggers are all bouncing off each other in a quite interesting manner over largely Canadian issues. In a similar way, certain blogs seem to hit ‘hot streaks’ and the rest start reacting to that blog’s interesting views rather than just what the established media is reporting, setting up an interesting interblog harmonic for a while. It will be intriguing to see what dynamics take hold in the longer term when the majority of blogs stop thinking of themselves as ‘warblogs’. I suspect blogs, or something like them, are here to stay but they are sure to start mutating over time into… well, good question… into whatever comes next. We will just have to wait and see what that is. January 11th, 2002 | Comments are closed
I was pointed at this article about consensual incest in the Guardian and yet again the issues are the usual ones… on one hand social loathing of a relationship which translates into the force of law leading to destroyed lives… and on the other people freely doing what they want to do with each other. Incest is such a taboo that it gets mixed up with all the other extreme taboos, like rape and pederasty, but which a moments thought shows are all quite separate things. If people want to have a relationship that is not coercive, how is that anyone else’s business? Violence within a relationship and rape are reasonably illegal but if those are absent, what is the problem? Does incest make you uncomfortable? Well it certainly does make me uncomfortable. So feel free to not associate with people who act in ways that make you uncomfortable. That is usually what I do. Yet it is not so hard to understand how these things happen. I have repeatedly felt attracted to a cousin of mine and although it never came to anything, I can certainly understand how in other circumstances things might have happened differently. But is that something that justifies legislation? How can that be? Whose business is it which two adult people have relationships with each other and in what manner? As Dr. Sean Gabb says in the article, if it is because of the fear of birth defects, will we also forbid relationships to other unrelated people who exhibit a clear history of genetic defects with eugenic laws? I cannot help thinking everyone would be a great deal happier if we all just minded our own damn business and left others to go where their hearts take them, no matter how strange other people might find it. January 10th, 2002 | Comments are closed
When Tony Blair and New Labour got elected in 1997 the understandable dismay among Conservatives manifested itself as dire warnings that ‘New’ Labour was a glossy sham and it was just ‘Old’ Labour dressed up in electable clothes. Soon, they warned, the public would realise that they had let the wolf back in the door and the days of Trade Union militancy and a crippled economy would return to haunt us again. You just wait and see, they said. Mere sour grapes, said all the pundits. And, thus far, the pundits appear to have been proved right Thus far, but maybe not much further. And it isn’t just transport that looks like grinding to a halt. Post Office unions are ballotting their members on a nationwide strike and mail in North London is already in chaos thanks to a local dispute Those of us who are old enough to have lived in Britain in the 1970’s under ‘Old’ Labour remember only too well what it looked like. It looked a bit like this January 10th, 2002 | Comments are closed
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